This is how many solitary minutes you need to reset your overstimulated brain

For some of us, the idea of being alone with ourselves scares us more than any other challenge we’ll face in our life. Solitude scares us so much that we prefer to be out doing something instead of sitting in solitude doing nothing, even if that something causes us pain. In a recent (depressing) study, psychologists found that when given a choice, people would prefer to shock themselves with electricity as opposed to sit alone with their own thoughts.

Technology allows us to escape our troubled minds more easily than ever. With our smart devices attached to our hands and ears, we never need to be alone with no one to talk to and nothing to do. There will always be some app to converse with or a person to call.

Study: 15 minutes of alone time is enough to deactivate your stressful emotions

Student participants in the “Solitude as an Approach to Affective Self-Regulation” study were split up into two groups: those who got to talk to a researcher about their studies and those who were told to sit away from their electronic devices and do nothing for 15 minutes. Although the students who talked to the researcher experienced no changes, the ones in solitude experienced significant decreases in positive and negative feelings like excitement, anger, and anxiety.